Hayley Imbler	9:16 AM (9 minutes ago)
to Kathleen, me, Michael

Happy Monday!!!! 

How did Christmas go for everyone?? Hope that it all passed well and that you could all spend time with your families! I know I was so happy to be able to talk with my family! It was wonderful to see their faces and know that all is well there at home! I also got to see a little bit of the snow which made me super jealous!                                                                                                 

Sorry I´m going to go a little backwards in the order but it´s because I just can´t contain my happiness about what I am going to tell you! The baptism of Sergio was probably one of the best days of my mission!! Saturday morning at 10 our mission leader called us and said that everything was ready for the baptism at 6 that night, we were super stoked, we finished our study time and went to lunch. Right before lunch the 1st counselor in the bishopric called us and said that there wasn´t water in the chapel. OH NO... How is it possible to have a baptism without water?? Doesn´t happen! So we had to have the baptism in the stake center! Sergio showed up with his family at 6 o´clock wearing his Dad´s old suit, white shirt and tie. I almost started crying. He is the cutest 78 year old man and I just wanted to hug him (too bad that´s against the rules...) We took pictures and started the baptism. Everything went smoothly just as planned. At the end of the baptism he bore his testimony and began to cry, so of course I began to cry as well. He talked about how God had touched his heart and he had really changed from who he was before. I have never felt more grateful than to have been a part of the change in his life. On Sunday after he was confirmed he shook the hand of everyone that was sitting on the stand, super funny!

This week was a little slow considering it was Christmas and all, but one other super cool story. Henry has been investigating the church for months and months, I think about 6 or 7. His brother is a member and he has gone to church with him. We had been trying to have a lesson with him for weeks and we finally tracked him down on Thursday. We were with the 1st counselor in our ward and we entered his house. We shared about the plan of salvation and talked about the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us. I asked him what he was willing to do to show his gratitude for Jesus Christ and he said I suppose follow his example. Which led in perfectly to talking about baptism. I then invited him to be baptized and he said "Claro que si" which is like of course! And then we decided that this January 18th would be the date. He then continued to tell us that before he had accepted baptism and a date, but wasn´t really ready to commit, he felt like he needed more time. He said that now is his time and that he has the support of his wife and his mom which was a big factor. I am so excited, we are going to visit him quite a bit this week so I will keep you all updated on that for sure.

We talked to Holger and Yesenia this week about getting married and we found out that Holger´s documents are in Ecuador so we don´t know how long it will take to figure that out. We´re a little sad, but we´ll see how everything turns out. 

Looks like I´m out of time again.. We are switching P day to Wednesday this week for New Years so we can have a little fun together. I will also be moving to my new apartment this Wednesday and will finally have water all day long instead of only until 2 in the afternoon. 

Hope that you all enjoy your new years holidays! I hope you all have set some good goals for the New year. I have realized that a life without goals is not really much of a life at all. Take care everyone and remember how much I love you and how much Heavenly Father loves you all!!

Hermana Imbler

Hayley Imbler	Dec 23 (3 days ago)
to Kathleen, me, Michael

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

Can´t even imagine how it is right now to have a white Christmas! I am so beyond jealous, I´m here in Peru gettin´ sunburnt and sweating up a storm. The weather may say 75 degrees or something close, but the humidity makes it feel like a blazing 100 degrees or more! I´m super excited to be able to talk face to face with my family this week, just hearing their voices for five minutes just got me super excited for Wednesday!

I don´t have much time today because the internet was acting up for about 45 minutes, but to be short in everything we were focused a lot this week on teaching, teaching, and teaching! We have a new goal for teaching lessons, so we are trying to always be teaching. It´s so true that sharing the gospel and being able to teach others brings so much more happiness than other things. 

Monday we were able to talk to Alejandra and her mom about the Book of Mormon and everything went pretty good, but she still hasn´t read. We also visited them on Wednesday and talked more about baptism. Alejandra is a great girl and likes listening to us, but she is struggling to follow through with her prayers and reading. We are going to have to work hard to put a desire in her heart to listen and follow through with things that are going to help her to better her life. 

Alonso didn´t come to church this week. There is a possibility that he can still be baptized this Saturday, but our District Leader wants to have an interview with him to see if he really is ready to make the commitment. Granted he is only ten years old, but we want him to be able to go to church every week and right now he can´t because he has to visit his grandparents almost every weekend. It´s sad because he is a sweet kid and every time he prays he says "I know that the church is true" but we will have to see how everything goes!

Sergio is progressing really quickly. He went to church again on Sunday and we have decided together that he is going to be baptized this Saturday! He´s nervous because it has all happened so fast, but he truly has had a big change of heart and I know that he will continue to progress because he feels in his heart that this is what God wants for him and he knows that he will find happiness in the church! He always says poco a poco, which means little by little. Everything that we do is little by little. We can´t wake up one morning and be a different person. We change little by little, which is why those small things have so much importance in our life. Our little comments, thoughts, actions can change who we are as people. So remember that who you are is composed of the little things you do. If you want to be better or change something, start small and in time you will be able to reach the goal you want.

I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas and that you can remember the true purpose of this season. Next week I will do my best to give a full report of everything. Hope that the internet treats me well on Monday! Love you all and am wishing you the happiest of Christmases here in Perú (is Christmases a word? Hope so!)

Con mucho amor

Hermana Imbler

Hayley Imbler	9:41 AM (5 hours ago)
to Kathleen, me, Michael

Happy Monday everyone! I have big news... today is the 16th which means I´m on the countdown of one year left of the mission! I can´t believe that one year from today I will be on a plane headed home.. That just means that I am going to have to WORK WORK WORK in the short time that I have left! I feel like I have so much more to do here and I really hope I can get it all done in this short year I have left!

Monday was Pday.. surprise surprise haha! We didn´t do a whole lot, but that night we found out that we have to move houses...again! The daughter of the lady who rents the house wanted a contract and as missionaries we can´t do contracts.. So we now have until the end of the month to find another place to live, and let me tell ya, it´s not an easy job house hunting in Lima and finding somewhere decent. But later on we had a lesson with Alonso and everything went really well, it´s pretty easy to teach kids becaue they usually don´t have many objections and are super willing to listen and learn more!

Tuesday was a slow day, we had our normal district meeting and then studies. We went out to work and nearly all of our lessons fell through. It was rough and as the trainer I had to decide what we should do. Luckily we were able to have a few lessons with some less active members and try to encourage them to keep reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and going to church. 

Wednesday: Service in the morning, we went with one of our zone leaders and our district leader to meet other missionaries at a house pretty much at the tippy top of one of the cerros (hill/mountain). We were late and we had to walk really really far so we decided to take a moto taxi, these little mini cars with three wheels. It was the first and probably last time I will have permission to ride in one of those, but it was super cool! The lessons were lacking again we couldn´t find many people that wanted to receive us, but we did have a great lesson about repentance with some less-active members. I never thought I would like teaching repentance, but it really is so cool and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to repent of those mistakes I have made as well as every other person, thanks to our older brother Jesus Christ.

Thursday: Another slow day (it seems like we had a lot of those this last week..) but we had one lesson that was just AWESOME. We found a 14 year old girl, Alejandra, and she is super excited to learn more. Her mom listened to us as well but they have a little bit of an interesting case. Elsa (the mom) is married to someone different than the dad of Alejandra, so in order to be baptized she needs to divorce her previous husband and then marry the dad of Alejandra.. that process is about 4 or 5 months at least.. but we are going to try to work with the regarless.

Friday: Hermana Choque, our sister leader, came to visit and do a 24 hour transfer to see how well I am working in the area. This day we had 7 lessons.. the most I have had in a long time. We talked with Alejandra again. We finally found Antony, but he didn´t have a whole lot of desires to learn a lot more, only 50% of the time he believes in God, the other no. After that we received a really good reference, Sergio. He´s about 70 years old, but really wants to get closer to God. We talked with a less active member Lysette and I shared the experience of how I will always be grateful to the neighbors that sent the missionaries to my dad and his family. It was a super spritual and she committed to share the gospel with her friends and neighbors. 

Saturday: We talked again with Alejandra and her family and she accepted a baptismal date for January 4th! We then had a lesson with Edgar, we talked about the plan of Salvation and he had a lot of questions, but he is struggling to progress. He always says "I´m in the process of preparing for baptismal, but I still need more time". I´ve done all I can to help him, I feel like I´ve taught him well and he still doesn´t want to be baptized. All we can do now as missionaries is wait for him to do his part and then help him again.. so I think we are going to stop visiting him for a while. 

Sunday: The classic primary program! We had 5 of our investigators come to church to see the program: Alejandra, Alonso, Sergio, Edgar, and Carmen (Antony´s mom). It was pretty great like primary programs usually are. Later we had our last lesson with Edgar, it went about the same as Saturday, and we´ve decided to stop visiting him for a while. It´s a little sad because he was doing well, but it´s just one of those things that missionaries have to do.. there are other people waiting for us to find them. We found one of those Sunday night. Luzmila opened her door, and we were looking for a reference. I asked her if we could share something short with her and she accepted. We invited her to be baptized, and she asked me how much she needed to pay.. never thought I would receive that question, salvation is free, we only need to want to follow Jesus Christ and obey God´s commandments. We´ll see if she continues to progress this week. 

Hope all is going well as you get ready for Christmas this coming week. It´s hot here so I don´t really feel like it´s Christmas time, but this morning we sang songs in a hospital, that helped a little bit. Eat some yummy treats for me since the only thing I´ll be eating is more rice and maybe a little panatone (fruitcake..mmm NOT) haha. Love each and every one of you. Remember this Christmas what we are really celebrating. The best gift you can give anyone is the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Have a great week!

Hermana Imbler

Hayley Imbler	Dec 9 (6 days ago)
to me, Michael, Michael

Happy Monday everyone!!!

I´M A MOM!!!! Hahahahahah... Ok at least that´s what they say here in the mission, but really I´m just training a new missionary! It´s definitely a big responsibility and I still am a little nervous, but so far all seems to be going pretty well! 

Tuesday.. Transfers.. I was able to catch up a little bit with Hermana Huerta which I loved! We had pizza with the newbies and then had the meeting where we found out who was going to be our companion. I was super nervous.. but I knew I would be training a Latina... mostly because there were 11 new Hermanas and 10 were Latinas.. haha! They called my name and the name of.... Hermana Callejas! She is from La Paz, Bolivia, is 22 years old and has a lot of desires to really work hard in the mission. I´m not going to lie and say training is easy, because it´s hard work, but it´s really worth it! 

Wednesday we got to work! It was hard starting off my first day as a trainer, I´m still fairly new to the area and struggled with knowing where to go or who to visit, but Katlin, a girl in our ward, came with us during the night and we were able to find a less active member Liz and had a really great lesson with her. She has a 13 year old daughter, Bridget who hasn´t been baptized, but every weekend she goes to her Dad´s house and isn´t able to go to church.. sad news. 

Thursday.. probably the hardest day of the week for me. We went to a lot of different houses and no one really wanted to open their doors for us, either that or they weren´t home.. I felt a little bit lost and like I wasn´t being a good senior companion because there was nowhere to go..but everyone has those days in the mission. There will always be a day when we get discouraged and don´t feel like we want to keep going.. BUT.. prayer is a magical thing because the last three days of the week were pretty great!

Friday.. We had a training meeting for the new missionaries until lunch time. It was pretty good, we learned a lot about how important it is to plan our days so we never are lost. Well I have planned my days, but then when plan c and plan d fall through it´s a little more difficult. but that´s in the past! We visited the Zegarra family, they are less actives as well, and everything went well they had lots of desires to start reading the Book of Mormon again. Then.. Brandon´s baptism!! Baptism´s are always crazy, but everything turned out to be really good. There is nothing that brings me more joy than watching my brothers and sisters enter the waters of baptisms and make covenants with our Heavenly Father. I really have learned that there is no other way to true happiness than by living the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we really put our effort into living what we believe we will obtain what we all want, which is to live with our families forever in the eternity with our Heavenly Father. 

Saturday.. training meeting in the morning which was pretty good. Then we had a lesson with Edgar.. turns out he drank on Saturday at his brother´s wedding.. I was super sad, because he had been progressing so much.. we tried to help him understand the importance of living the word of wisdom, but not much luck. in the evening one of our visits fell through... the investigator was hiding behind a taxi from us.. super sad as well... so we went to visit some less active members, and there we found Jerson! He´s 15 years old and is a friend of the son in the family. We had a great lesson with him and are planning on visiting him this Tuesday as well. 

Sunday.. Church.. Only Henry showed up in sacrament meeting, he´s an old investigator we´ve had for a while who is struggling to accept a baptismal date because he wants his wife to get baptized with him, but she doesn´t really want to listen to us yet. I gave a talk about missionary work and it seemed to animate the members a little bit because that afternoon we had 4 lessons with members. We found Magaly who is super receptive and then we were able to find Stefanni´s husband (the step dad of Nayeli and Cesar). He also was super receptive and has stopped working Sundays for now so we can continue teaching him!

Overall this week started off pretty rough and then ended really great!! I hope you all are doing well at home and enjoying the snow! I´m super jealous, it doesn´t really feel like Christmas time at all here... Remember how much I love you all, and how much I think about you all! Never forget that little things can bring great things to pass.. Do the little things.. Pray, your Heavenly Father wants to talk with you as much as your earthly parents. Read your scriptures, they literally have the answer to any question you have. Go to church, it´s a promise that we will not have hunger or thirst (spritually) if we go to church. 

Have a wonderful week everyone!!

Hermana Imbler

Lovin´ the mish in Libertad

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Hayley Imbler	9:19 AM (11 hours ago)
to Kathleen, me

I´M ALIVE!!! Ok I guess none of you heard, because it wasn´t that big of a thing, but I lived through a 5.8 earthquake! Last Monday was Pday and my companion and I went to one of the very few malls here in Lima North because my companion needed some new shoes. So we were in Payless (surprise that they had that here, but the shoes aren´t as good of quality haha) and we were looking around, then all of the sudden the windows started shaking, and then everything else. People started running and yelling that the roof was going to fall, but after a little bit it passed. Hermana Cruz and I of course were both freaking out because neither of us has ever felt an earthquake. But hey everything is all good now! Later that day we went to look for Cheyla, but she wasn´t there so we ended up talking with one of the less active sisters (she is the mom of Cheyla´s boyfriend) and her other son Alonso. We found out that he hasn´t been baptized yet, so we are working with him to prepare to be baptized this month! It was also Cesar´s birthday so we went to celebrate a little with him, Nayeli, and Estefanni. 

Tuesday was a day I will never forget.. We had our normal District meeting and then went to lunch. We were walking to one of our lessons with Rosario (a little girl who got baptized before I came). There was construction in the street and so everything was a little messy. I stepped off the curb and felt a really sharp pain in my foot.. so I stepped again and it was worse.. I yelled for my companion.. I sat back down on the curb and some kind of nail-ish thing had gone through the bottom of my shoe and in to my foot... Ya ouch.. we pulled it out, drained the blood and cleaned it with alcohol... Probably one of the most painful things.. And one of the most frustrating for a missionary who has to walk all day every day! 

Wednesday we painted the outside of a house of some new converts in the ward. A bunch of our zone came so that was super fun. We also were able to find a new investigator, Ricardo who was really receptive. We´ve been struggling a lot to find new investigators lately.. We aren´t receiving many references which are usually our best bet for finding new people to teach! 

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday (Sorry I always combine these days.. I start writing a lot and then I run out of time..) We´ve been working with Brandon a lot this last week to get him ready for his baptism this Saturday and he´s excited to have his Grandpa baptize him. We´ve been visiting Nayeli and Cesar this week as well. they didn´t come to church on Sunday, which made us really sad, we are headed there today to see what happened. We talked to Edgar on Saturday and he was doing pretty good, he´s had problems with the Word of Wisdom in the past, mostly drinking, so we´ve set some goals for him. He went to a wedding Saturday night, and then all day Sunday he didn´t answer his phone and supposedly wasn´t home.. Super sad.. he was also supposed to have his interview to be baptized this Saturday, but now we´re going to have to change the date.. Really sad because he is always really receptive and has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and everything..

Today we are going to find out transfers, so we´ll see how everything goes, where I end up, and with who! Hope you all have a great week! Never forget how much value you have in my eyes and in the eyes of our Heavenly Father. You are all his children, and we are all brothers and sisters, one big family! 

Hermana Imbler